Archives: September 2004
Wed Sep 29, 2004
OF BROWNFIELDS AND PRISONS
CHARLES ‘FABULOSO’ RICHARDSON, he of local daily newsprint and arguably the greatest intellect ever attracted to that august publication’s editorial board, bit his tongue the other day and wrote, “The Mayor is right.”
Heaven did not rain down fire and brimstone. There was no immediate evidence of divine wrath, nor any concert of plagues lashing the House of Knight-Ridder.
It was, in the Guru’s own words, ‘hard to say’, meaning that the portly, community activist, ex radio personality and occasional sit-in for Kenny B. and Jami G., has been for months leading the MACON TELEGRAPH’S one-sided charge against our duly elected mayor, Hizzoner, C. Jack Ellis. Was it an about face?
No, not really. Mr. Richardson was not talking about alleged improprieties in city hall, malfeasance within the executive branch, wasted or misappropriated funds, recall, or even his favorite metaphor about peeling back the layers of an onion. No, he was weighing in on the Mayor’s side about the scope and location of a new Bibb County jail.
Or the expansion of the old lock-up, depending on which plan you favor.
First, in case you missed it, Bibb County is under judicial mandate to enlarge its warehouse for felons. That Georgia incarcerates an alarmingly, unnecessarily high, proportion of its Black citizens is not the issue here. We are required to have more jail space even though Macon, our population matrix, continues to lose population. The feds are growing impatient.
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Wed Sep 15, 2004
AND WHO FOR PRESIDENT?
(DOES IT REALLY MATTER?)
(DOES IT REALLY MATTER?)
BUT FIRST……….We have finally figured how to increase Macon’s income so that the big bad Damoclean Sword of bankruptcy will no longer threaten our poor, suffering city.
The solution is simple and obvious; we all saw it clearly last week; it’s been under our noses all along. Hotels, restaurants, food and liquor stores, shopping malls all did record business. Why? A slow moving hurricane forced half the population of the Sunshine State into Central Georgia. The extra sales tax alone will be enough to hire the two or three additional outside consultants needed to solve the problems deemed insurmountable by the towering intellects over at City Hall, or a half dozen of those omnipresent committees whose task it is to re-examine the same, pressing city problems every few years and come up with exactly, the same recommendations every previous study did.
(One of the series of a convoluted tunnel complex beneath our streets was missed last Friday in a MACON TELEGRAPH piece on the little-known, subterranean city. This same article featured an unflattering picture of City Attorney Pope Langstaff inside a man-sized sewer pipe. There is a vast, multi-layer series of tunnels. Large and small rooms, several stories deep, sitting directly beneath City Hall. Within these catacombs are stored, languishing largely unread, committee reports dating back to some time before the Civil War. Known but to a select few, this repository forms the graveyard of millions of City documents. It is rumored that a similar warren can be found underneath the County Courthouse, but Bibb officials are somewhat more prone to secrecy than their urban counterparts.)
So, clearly, Macon can be put on the path to financial solvency by increasing the number of natural disasters threatening Florida. We should be able to retire all our debts, real and imagined, before the end of Mr. Ellis’ second term in office.
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Wed Sep 01, 2004
OF RECALL
AND RACISM
AND RACISM
Here's the latest from THE ELEVENTH HOUR. What was submitted (below) was apparently a little long for the space available, and a few minor items were omitted which are found in italics.
It should come as a surprise to nobody except an occasional, myopic Pollyanna that Macon is a city divided by race.
That division intensified recently as two separate movements got underway: the latest, in support of embattled Mayor C. Jack Ellis; the other, dedicated to removing the man from office.
The pro Ellis group, overwhelmingly (read 100%) African American, held its inaugural rally on Saturday, August 21st on the steps of City Hall. About 125 (by actual count) supporters showed up for the event organized by Ms. Vee Hubbard, who heads a group called ‘Citizens In Support Of C. Ellis’.
Segments of the local media have been all over what seems to be a developing face-off profiled in black and white. Cries and counter cries of ‘racism’ are heard, not unlike a ping pong ball furiously driven back and forth between intense, cutthroat competitors. There is a hint of hyperbole here, coupled with the usual numbing, news-less doldrums that sensationalize the trite and the inane during the late weeks of summer.
But there is an all-important question that needs be asked at this time: is this gulf ‘racial’ or is it ‘racism’. There is a huge difference between the two. We shall return to this notion in a few moments. But first, a little recent history.
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